FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (BRAIN) — Life Electric Vehicles CEO Rob Provost has high expectations for Rad Power Bikes after officially acquiring the beleaguered brand for $13.3 million March 5. And he's looking farther ahead. He told BRAIN in an interview that plans are underway to acquire another struggling e-bike brand. It would be Life EV's third acquisition since 2023 following Harley-Davidson's Serial 1 brand.
Provost co-founded ProdecoTech, a big-box retail e-bike manufacturer, and said the next brand acquisition will complement Life EV's portfolio. He said the brand "has done phenomenal in the past but then the cost became too expensive."
Sounds similar to Rad Power Bikes. It's been a dizzying downfall for the brand that in October 2021 announced a $154 million financing round that brought its total investment amount to $329 million since its inception in 2007. Since then it has had several personal liability lawsuits, layoffs, and management changes.
Late last year, Rad Power filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in advance of completing the sale and less than a month after it said it could not afford a recall on some of its older lithium-ion batteries that the Consumer Product Safety Commission deemed unsafe.
Striking the deal
Life EV was one of a group of companies interested in acquiring Rad Power. "When we started the bidding process, we were going to be this stalking horse bid," Provost said. "We're looking at it, talking to some people in the industry about it, and we thought it was going to be a $50 to $60 million acquisition. All of a sudden, it was much lower."
From the bankruptcy was born Rad Life Mobility, a subsidiary of Life Electric Vehicles Holdings. Rad will remain based in Seattle, and Provost said he's offered positions to about 95% of the current employees.
He said Rad Power's financial situation was similar to Serial 1 and that building the bikes in and shipping from Life EV's 60,000-square-foot Fort Lauderdale location will result in long-term savings and sales growth, Provost said.
"We started looking at the 3PL side, and they were stuck in these bad contracts. So for us to distribute from our own facility, we eliminate that issue."
Transitioning to the U.S. from Asia, Rad benefits from affiliated manufacturing operations by using a Foreign Trade Zone structure, Provost said. Components are expected to be sourced at the fabrication level from global suppliers.
Provost said he was most impressed with Rad Power's intellectual property. "They have a tremendous amount of patents, over 250 of them, and they're granted," said Provost, who noted the rack and cargo systems and a trike that was discontinued. "And they also have a tremendous amount of trademarks, over 300 that are registered. They have a whole R&D department that I don't think a lot of people know about, and they developed some really great products that just never have seen the light of day. So we're going to definitely take a few of those and bring them forward."
Addressing the battery issue
A current patent should help Rad navigate the CPSC issue. Life EV will address that issue by implementing a program to replace the approximate 120,000 recalled batteries at 50% discount. The recall involved mostly older batteries before Rad Power obtained UL certification for its Safe Shield-branded battery, which features a special resin coating around the cells to mitigate thermal runaway.
In an interview with BRAIN in 2024, Rad's then-CEO Phil Molyneux said the resin material is injected around the cells and circuitry inside the pack with the resin able to absorb heat. Provost said the Safe Shield batteries are a potential OEM product for Life EV. "This is a really good concept."
In the past few years, the Rad Power CEO position has been a resolving seat, with Chief Financial Officer Angelina "Angy" Smith replacing Kathi Lentzsch when the bankruptcy proceedings began, the fourth change in three years. Lentzsch replaced Molyneaux in March 2025, and he succeeded founder Mike Radenbaugh in 2022.
Rad Life Mobility now will be headed by President Jim Brown, an investor in the Rad acquisition who has a background in auto dealerships. Provost said he wants Rad to have a strong retailer base and intends to expand the RadRetail stores to about 24 from the seven currently. During the bankruptcy proceedings RadRetail locations in Vancouver, British Columbia, and St. Petersburg, Florida, were closed. Provost said the St. Petersburg store will be reopened.
"I know a lot of people feel like the stores are not the right model," Provost said. "And I think some of the people, even at Rad, felt that maybe they don't need the stores. But they're such an accessory-rich company. When you go into a Rad Power store, it's a different experience than if you're going to the website.
"They've done tremendous revenue in the past, and nobody spent more money on building that customer base in North America than they have. So in almost any major strong market, there's a rider community that if you have a store there for the sales and support, especially with the revenues they've done in 2021 and 2022, those people there need new products."
MSRPs for all Rad models will be unchanged, Provost said, with retailer margins increasing. "That's another challenge. They have 600 stocking dealers, and it's one of the lower margin products in the dealerships. When the customer comes in, most likely they're putting them on another product than on a Rad Power Bike. If they make the full margin, they'll put them on a Rad Power Bike."
European plans
Building a customer base in Europe will be a priority, he said. "We already reached out to some Harley-Davidson distributors on the European side. We can make a European version of the product and have a certificate of origin from the USA on it, and it bypasses the anti-dumping tariff issue that was going on with a lot of the China product. If you look at the Rad Power Wagon, you look at some of their products, those are perfect European bikes."
Life EV is financially backed by family and friends into a group of more than 200 shareholders, "some of them very successful entrepreneurs," Provost said. "So when it comes time to write the checks, we don't have to go too far." Lane VC also is a financial partner and is a 9% owner in Serial 1.
